John Wolff's Web Museum

Calculating Machines

Resources for further information

The background information and historical notes in these pages have been collated from a wide variety of sources. This page lists some of the broader published resources which readers may consult for further information. More specific references are listed on the individual pages.

Books and printed publications.

• The Calculating Machines (Die Rechenmaschinen), Ernst Martin, 1925.
  This book is a comprehensive and frequently-quoted (if not always accurate) source of information on the calculator industry world-wide up until about 1925. The book was translated from the original German and re-published by the MIT Press in 1992 (ISBN 0-262-13278-8). The text of the translation has been re-published on the Rechenmaschinen Illustrated web site. A supplement was published around 1935 but was not included in the translation.
  
  
• Origin of Modern Calculating Machines, J.A.V.Turck, 1921.
  This book gives a first-hand account of many of the early developments from the 1880s to the 1920s, particularly in regard to key-driven and printing calculators. Turck manufactured his own key-driven machine (the "Mechanical Accountant") from 1900, before joining Felt & Tarrant in about 1910 and leading the technical development of the Comptometer through the 1920s and 30s. The book was reprinted in 1972 (ISBN 0-405-04730-4) and is still available.
  
  
• A Computer Perspective, C&R Eames, Harvard University Press, 1973. SBN 674-15625-0
  This book was produced to document an exhibition on the history of computing that was presented by IBM in New York in 1973. It covers the period up to the 1950s, and is very much concerned with the social and historical context in which calculating and computing technology was developed.
  
  
• It all adds up, Edwin Darby, Chicago, 1968
  This book was commissioned to mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Victor Adding Machine Company (later the Victor Comptometer Corporation) in Chicago in 1918. It covers the history of the company and its founders, and devotes two chapters to the merger with the Comptometer Corporation in 1961. It gives an interesting picture of the industrial and commercial environment in America during the first half of the 1900s. The book is readily available from second-hand dealers.
  
  
• Neue Blicke auf alte Maschinen (New look at old machines), Martin Reese, Hamburg, 2002. ISBN 3-8300-0533-4
  This book provides brief histories of many of the German calculating machine companies and their products, with biographical details about the founders and designers. The book (in German only) is available from the publisher via amazon.co.uk.
  
  
• The IEEE Annals of the History of Computing contain occasional articles on calculators as computer pre-history. Items of particular interest include:
  • several articles on Charles Babbage's calculating engines, by the late Professor Alan Bromley of the University of Sydney.
  • articles on some of the early American calculator companies clustered in St Louis and Chicago, by Peggy Kidwell of the Smithsonian Institution.
  • a reprint of a lecture presented to the Association for Computing Machinery in 1952 by George Chase, the Chief Engineer of the Monroe Calculating Machine Company. This first-hand account surveys some of the machines which advanced the art of mechanical calculation, and the men who built them.
  Copies of the IEEE Annals are available in some academic libraries. Individual articles can be located and purchased on-line through www.ieee.org.
  
  

On-line resources.

• The Rechnerlexikon (calculator encyclopaedia) is an extensive collection of user-contributed information on mechanical calculators, companies, people, and patents. The site is primarily in German.
  
  
• The Rechenmaschinen Illustrated web site extends Ernst Martin's 1925 text (above) to the present time with user-contributed details and illustrations of later models. The site (in English) covers only mechanical calculators.
  
  
• The Museum of HP Calculators is the definitive source for information on Hewlett-Packard electronic calculators. It also contains a section on pre-electronic calculators, with an explanation of the basic principles of some of the early mechanisms.
  
  
• James Redin's web site is a good starting point for general information on vintage calculators. The site includes photos, technical articles, and links to resources and collectors world-wide.
  
  
• Rick Bensene's Old Calculator Web Museum (USA) has detailed descriptions and background information on many early electronic calculators.
  
  
• Nigel Tout's Vintage Calculators Web Museum (UK) has gives a British perspective on mechanical and early electronic calculators, and includes a very detailed history of the Bell Punch Company.
  
  
• Brent Hilpert's Early Electronic Calculators (EEC) web site (Canada) presents detailed technical information derived from reverse-engineering of early electronic calculators. The site includes circuit diagrams, in-depth circuit analysis, and even logic simulations of several early machines.
  
  
• The US Patent and Trademarks Office contains a wealth of original patent documents relating to mechanical calculators. They are all available on-line, but they are not easy to find unless you know the patent number. Copies can be purchased, or downloaded one page at a time as TIFF images.
  
  
• The Google patent site contains a searchable copy of the US Patent Office database. The search fields are derived from the old printed documents by optical character recognition, and contain a vast number of errors. The search results are often helpful, but are rarely complete or exhaustive.
  
  
• Your favourite search engine will find the most up-to-date links to calculator information on the Internet.